SOA has thus far been known as Service Oriented Architecture. When you consider all of the other acronyms for the same "space" or subject area, there is confusion. EDA, SOA, BPM, BAM are all interrelated.
This blog will try to help reduce the confusion.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

I was chatting with a fellow SOA expert Tim Vibber also known as the SOA Chief. We were talking about what a couple of guys who want to start an SOA consulting company should do. This took the conversation to why SOA fails and to a post about SOA being dead.

After talking about the failure points, I wondered what makes a good/great architect. Tim stats that we need to develop systems to be more nimble. I couldn't agree more, but the question is why can't companies do that? Why can't architects accomplish that simple statement of "make systems more nimble"?

Both Tim and I are looking for new opportunities so what are these attributes? Do we have control of them?

To explain these attributes, I am going to borrow something from one of my favorite podcasts: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Lecture from Stanford University Technology Ventures Program. Although I have learned so much from all of the various pod casts, one of my favorite is from Tina Seeliq entitled What I wish I knew when I was 20. Tina described many important attributes such as Every problem is an opportunity, "the harder I work, the luckier I am" and "never miss an opportunity to be fabulous" and many others.

But the one I want to use here is "Find the intersection between your Interests, Skills and the market." Tina uses this to describe where one should look to find a career. She shows where one of those attributes are missing that it is less than ideal.

Interest + market but no skill then your a fan

Interest + Skills but no market then that's a hobby

skills + market but no interest then that's a "job"

Interest + skills + Market = career: A place where you can invest yourself with reward.

For an enterprise architect, I want to change this slightly. I want to find the traits that are needed for an enterprise architect.

Thus far I've come up with Vision, Passion, Power and Need.

Vision + passion + need but no power = impotent and frustration

Vision + passion + power but no need = unneeded/wasteful projects

Passion + power + need but no vision = future integration opportunity or stuck in the way we've been doing it forever

Vision + power + need but no passion = no buy-in

I would love some thoughts on this. I think this is very critical to finding good architects and empowering them but also how does an architect find a place s/he should be?